social capital

social capital A concept devised by James Coleman, used to describe the types of relations that exist between individuals as located within both families and communities, and which are said to exert a strong influence on levels of educational achievement (see James S. Coleman and and Thomas Hoffer , Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities, 1987
). The concept parallels those of physical and human capital in economics. Coleman and Hoffer argued that deficiencies in social capital–such as would follow from single-parenthood, decreased parental involvement with the child or with family activities, and low levels of interaction between adults and especially parents in local communities–were detrimental to development in adolescence.

Coleman maintained that ‘the social capital for a young person's development resides in the functional community, the actual social relationships that exist among parents, in the closure exhibited by this structure of relations, and in the parent's relations with the institutions of the community. Part of that social capital is the set of norms that develop in communities with a high degree of closure’. Closed networks, giving rise to functional communities, foster among children living therein such things as conformity to school norms, an interest in academic matters, and avoidance of deviance. Lack of interaction between parents and children, and between parents and other adults, fosters open networks, lack of communication, lack of adherence to and enforcement of norms and of family control, all of which reduces the probability of building up human capital and increases opportunities for deviant behaviour.

It has been suggested that this argument represents a significant shift in Coleman's thinking about academic socialization from his earlier work. In his classic The Adolescent Society (1961), Coleman stresses the importance for adolescence and educational achievement of the youth cultures within schools, whereas the concept of social capital emphasized the out-of-school influence of the family as it interacts with the larger community. However, it has also been observed that it is possible to marry the two accounts, by considering the possibility that social capital (lack of parental monitoring, the decision to reside in particular neighbourhoods, and to establish ties with some but not other types of parents and institutions in the local community) exerts an indirect influence on peer-group selection among children; that is, that social capital is an indirect determinant of the subcultures in which young people become involved, both in the community and at school.